At the time of the Arroyo Hondo Pueblo project, dendroclimatology, the study of the interrelationships between trees and climate, had entered a new age as the result of advancing concepts, techniques, and equipment. This monograph reflects the maturing sophistication of the discipline. The application of dendroclimatic methods to the wealth of tree-ring specimens from Arroyo Hondo Pueblo was beneficial for all concerned. For the authors of this volume, Arroyo Hondo provided the raw material necessary for the first attempt to “use archeological tree-ring chronologies as a database for quantitative reconstructions of climatic variables for the prehistoric period.” This study offered a unique record of climatic variability: the reconstruction of annual and seasonal precipitation in inches from AD 985 to 1970.

The dendroclimatological study reported in this volume provides significant insights into the chronology of the prehistoric sequence of events at Arroyo Hondo Pueblo. So close is the correlation between the precipitation changes reflected by tree rings and the major developments seen in the archeological record that causal relationships between the two are considered.

The work of Rose, Dean, and Robinson contributes significantly to an understanding of the cultural dynamics of Arroyo Hondo Pueblo. Their approach to reconstructing climate from tree rings is much more than a simple translation of tree-ring widths into precipitation variability. Only a complex and exacting statistical analysis can produce the precision of results achieved in this study, which has proved invaluable to archaeologists throughout the Southwest.